Craft and geography.

Earlier this week, M decided that she wanted to have a go at felting.  We've had some materials amongst our supplies for a while, which we were given as a present by our lovely friend Ma at the same time as the quilling kit that was the start of K's hobby.  I had been meaning to dig it out and have a go for ages, but it was M who finally got there first.  We had a look together at some beginner videos on how to wet felt, but M wanted to make an animal, which meant needle felting.  I suggested that our friend Z would probably have the equipment that she'd need to give it a go, but she didn't want to wait and so we paid a trip to Hobbycraft.  There were various options but to give it a try without spending too much, M bought a kit, which included a couple of felting needles, that was cheaper than just buying a needle.

She has started one of the animals in the kit, but put that on hold today to make a couple of presents.  After doing a search on youtube, M found a tutorial and this afternoon made these two owls.

A very successful first attempt!

Yesterday two links showed up on Facebook, that were linked by the idea of perception, that I found fascinating, so showed them to K & M today.

This was the first one with 3D optical illusions.  The second one, here, was about how the Mercator projection based maps of the world distort the size of countries and made me realise that, despite being aware of the distortion, my perception of the relative size of countries is still really rather skewed!  As well as talking about that, as a result of the map of Colorado which is rectangular in shape, the conversation also turned to borders.  We talked about how in most parts of the world borders are not straight and often follow a natural physical barrier, such as a river or mountain range, but that in two parts of the world in particular there are border that consist of a significant amount of straight lines.  Those two parts of the world are North America and most noticeably Africa, both of which were invaded by Europeans and divided up between them.